This exciting news is accompanied by the slight disappointment (for those of us in the UK) that they won't be made in old Blighty. Cost, turnaround and (as practically every UK citizen will appreciate) most of all high taxes have meant that the foundation has had to look to the far east to make the units for them.

They do hope the Alpha boards will have less demand and will therefore be able to be made in the UK but for now, making 10,000 units in as short as time as possible while keeping the costs within target is apparently just not possible if they are manufactured in the UK. This probably says more about the state of the UK than anything about the Raspberry Pi foundation and I am not blaming Raspberry Pi at all. It's still a bit of a disappointment that a project many of us hope could rekindle some grass-roots computing culture here will not be made in the UK.

Regardless of that it looks like the wait for production models will soon be over.

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If you are in the UK and are disappointed that the import cuty rules have effectively forced projects like Raspberry Pi to manufcature their products outside the UK, you can sign a petition to let the government know.

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Biography

Ryan Cartwright heads up Equitas IT Solutions who offer fair, quality and free software based solutions to the voluntary and community (non-profit) and SME sectors in the UK. He is a long-term free software user, developer and advocate. You can find him on Twitter and Identi.ca.